The only contact Carlo Cantarelli, 64, had with his partner, Sue Simpson, 58, during the ordeal was the gentle reassurance of their entwined toes.

The men poured boiling water down their backs, smothered their faces with plastic bags, pulled at their skin with pliers and strangled them with ties.

The couple spoke to The Witness on Wednesday from their Howick hospital beds where they are still recovering from first-degree burns, severe bruising and, in Simpson's case, a compressed vertebra.

Pushed panic button

Hearing each other's cries of agony fuelled their belief they were about to be killed.

Simpson said she woke up to her dog barking about 01:00 on Tuesday morning, and went to investigate.

"As I entered the hall, three figures came towards me. I thought I was seeing things, and then I realised and screamed for Carlo.

"He pushed the panic button, but it didn't go off."

It is unclear whether the gang tampered with the alarm system, or whether it was faulty.

A police forensic team told the family that one suspect entered through a bathroom window and let another four into the house, described by a family member as Fort Knox.

Simpson said: "The men pushed me into the cabinet, and dragged Carlo - who had come running from the bedroom - back to the bedroom.

Wanted the safe key

"They tied him face-down on the floor and put me on the bed with the duvet over my head."

Holding guns to the couple's heads, the suspects began what Simpson described as "a long-playing record" of "Where's the money, where's the money"?

"They kept asking about the safe key. I told them where it was.

"They dragged me into the spare room to open it. But, there was only foreign currency in the safe, so they took the firearms."

Cantarelli had two pistols and a rifle, which were stolen by the gang, along with jewellery and a hi-fi system.

Simpson was dragged back to the bedroom, where Cantarelli had been gagged with several pairs of socks in his mouth and bound with ties and scarves around his head.

Poured boiling water on them

Simpson said: "One guy came into the bedroom with a kettle.

"He started pouring boiling water on my head and swirled it over my back," said Simpson, her hand weakly showing the patterns the water made over her body.

"At first, the pain was terrible, but then I just let it be there.

"They boiled the kettle again, then did the same to Carlo. I could just hear Carlo's screams. The whole time they were demanding money."

After finding no more than a few hundred rands, which Cantarelli said was in his bedroom drawers, the gang continued to torture the couple, with one man shoving the barrel of a rifle into Simpson's ear before removing it and bashing it against her chest.

"Blacked out" several times

They were suffocated with plastic bags, causing them both to slip in and out of consciousness.

Cantarelli remembered "blacking out" three times, while Simpson said she had been on "borderline consciousness", terrified at being out of breath.

Once the bags were taken off their heads, pliers from a toolkit where used to "pinch, pull and twist the soft skin" on the couple's bodies.

The gang also threatened the couple, first saying that they would break their legs and burn their house down, and then that they would rape Simpson.

Simpson said the ordeal ended only when the couple played dead, letting their bodies go limp and slowing their breathing down.

Called police

Within 10 minutes, the suspects had fled. Simpson freed herself and used a pair of scissors to free Cantarelli.

They called the police and Cantarelli's son who arrived with paramedics.

No arrests have been made.

Detective inspector Johnson Sindane appealed to anyone with any information to contact him on 033 845 6526 or 082 459 7454.